JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- Financial Advisor
- Select Asset Management KK, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥100,000 ~ ¥999,999 Paid Training Commission Based
-
- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
-
- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
0
Seiharinokaze
I'm curious to know how Korean people think or feel about Nakajima Miyuki. Her such songs as Ellen (エレーン), Yuki (雪), Ikoku (異国) or Kono Sora wo Tobetara.
Posted in: What do you think of Japanese pop and rock music? Heard anything you like?
0
Seiharinokaze
DanManjt
It's true Manchukuo was gained by hostilities initiated by Japan. But at that time much part of Asia except China had already been gained by the hostilities initiated by the West. Were they seized for the protection of their suzerain powers?
I already described the reason why Japan waged war since 1937 in China. It was not to increase land holdings. Also I said that Japan should not have been involved in it.
Subsistence and security thing was mainly for the hostilities against America (namely the Pacific War). I don't repeat what MacArthur pointed out. I just meant to say that insofar as they thought it was for security and subsistence to initiate hostility as a nation's will, it's difficult and too complicated to submit the action to the judgement of morals. Morals if anything should be applied to the judgement of war crimes stipulated by the law of war.
Well, in the eyes of Japan, America seemed to be supporting Chiang Kaishek's government (with whom Japan fought!) and only promote hostility and confusion in East Asia with ambition to increase her own interest and power. Insisting on the open door policy and respect for China's sovereignty (making oneself pleasant to China) on the one hand and not taking any initiative to settle issues Japan had with China in the multi-lateral cooperative framework of Washington system which America herself had advocated was nothing but what would make the area more precarious and unstable. It would necessarily build up confrontation between Japan and China and then with America. It's what a US diplomat John MacMurray prognosticated in 1935.
Or in a wider perspective, wasn't the hostility between Japan and China in line with America's interest? America didn't fight for good but she fought under the mask of good (even by setting the stage for the sneak attack)?
As for Yasukuni thing, the war dead or "judicial dead" or whoever were only something or less of chessmen in the enormous evil that may be ruling hordes of men.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
DanManjt
With respect to the war with America, MacArthur belatedly noticed for what Japan had fought. He said it was for security. Subsistence and security are not something to be morally judged, good or bad.
Seeing what America did since the beginning of the 20th century, I don't think America acted for good but for its own interests too. Harriman's plan for joint investment in the South Manchurian Railroad was proposed as if contingent fee for the mediation for the Russo-Japanese war. And once it war was thwarted, the US tried by all possible means to lay a railroad in parallel with the line. America insisted on Monroe Doctrine for North and South America but advocated the open door policy for China. Washington Conference was more than anything else for expansion of America's own interests in terms of favorable naval force ratio with Japan and cessation of Anglo-Japanese alliance. As a result it let China be more audacious and violent to embarrass Japan. Whom did it benefit really? And also who pulled the wires from behind to implement the stupid gold embargo in 1930 that thew Japan into utter confusion as if Japan was not a sovereign independent nation too?
In a wider perspective America's confrontation with Japan is to be regarded as that of imperialism vs another imperialism rather than good vs bad. It's a matter of ratio, or portion to take.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
DanManjt
I think that I already replied you for what purpose Japan fought in China. What I can say is Japan shouldn't have been involved in warfare (inland from Shanghai) at that time. It would have prevented the whole stupidity that followed and the confrontation with the US.
BTW, Tamon-tai (多聞隊) printed on the imperial navy flag in the photo was perhaps named after Vice Admiral Yamaguchi Tamon. His carrier force was part of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was the man who proposed to his superior officer Admiral Nagumo Chuichi that they should carry out the second attack to give complete damage. But Nagumo rejected. And during the Battle of Midway, Yamaguchi sparred with Nagumo upon a reconnaissance plane discovering a US aircraft carrier near Midway. He demanded that no time be wasted and that the planes be launched to attack the American carrier. But Nagumo rejected again. Shortly afterward, American carrier aircraft destroyed all the Japanese carriers except Yamaguchi's carrier Hiryu, which was later attacked by the aircraft from Enterprise. Yamaguchi and the captain rejected to leave their carrier and died with it after letting all the other crew be evacuated.
Sources: Wikipedia
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
DanManjt
Simply put, Japan's main cause for the war in China was to end antagonism as early as possible so that Japan in her naive wishful thinking along with China could contain the Soviets and prevent spread of communism in the far east. It seems Japan (and perhaps Britain too) didn't think Manchukuo so nefarious a scheme compared with any other colonies by the Western powers. But warfare that spread over the Great Wall or inland from Shanghai though initiated for the above purpose was somehow for once in a way in history considered, as you claim, "Japan fought for bad" or a crime against peace.
I'm not so familiar but J.F. Dulles gave much support to Nazis to let the Weimar Republic collapse and set up Nazi Germany? And some US investment bank hugely financed G Farbenindustrie AG which was also supplied with oil, lead and rubber by Standard Oil even during the wartime. Why supported your enemy albeit lucrative? Or that doesn't make so much difference?
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
And any more tolerant stance was proposed? Such as, for example, for the US to cease to support KMT through the railway line that ran from French Indochina to Haiphong?
I'm not sure if the enormous power was actually concerned which side would win. But at least sensible Japanese didn't think that Japan could win.
Anyway, the battleships that the Japanese navy sank and destroyed at Pearl Harbor were all of old types and aircraft carriers had been transferred to other places. Besides the oil tanks that stored 4.5 million barrels of heavy oil and repair facility nearby though spotted from above were left intact so that most of the battleships were repaired to be in service again and that the US navy could refuel from Pearl Harbor for months afterwords. It's not something to talk about as a miracle but some enigma in war. Admiral Yamamoto wouldn't approve further attacks however strongly he was urged. So the attack was not so much sneak as corner-cutting? Not as if it's the main reason why we were defeated.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
The enormous power seemed to have let the US president be waiting for the sneak attack while holding a tea party on the morning of the day. In 1939, even two years before the Pacific War started, postwar policies were already studied at CFR, right? So America's going to war was long since on the agenda. What mattered then was how to let it come. How to steer the public opinion in favor of going to war?
On the other in her last ditch negotiations to prevent war with America that resulted in the Hull note, Japan might have felt herself coming up against some enormous power too.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
By reading history books on this period, what I can gather as the primary cause on Japan's side for the war between Japan and China that started in August 1937 was to end the antagonism as early as possible. But I wonder why the war had to start when the general staff office of the military (and navy) opposed to spreading warfare in China at that time and insisted to continue negotiation with KMT government even though almost everyone else including mass media was so enraged as to think that they should chastise China.
Meantime I just happened to read a comic disquisition or gekiga titled "仕組まれた昭和史 (Concocted History of Showa)" by Soejima Takahiko. The book tells that Japan was just part of the world history in which she was manipulated like a piece of chessman by some enormous power from outside where the transition of world hegemony was being made to occur. Morass of warfare between Japan and China seems something programmed.
The postscript of the book begins as follows: War economy that wages war to stimulates the economy is the chronic disease of America or what is called an empire. The economy doesn't hold unless they wage war once every 5 or 10 years. Roosevelt's New Deal didn't come off well and what actually revived the US economy in 1940's was war economy.
The dropping of a-bombs on Japan was not for justice but for ratio or portion to take, the author argued. Not anything objectively better or morally superior. Just greed and plutolatry. The flag carrying old men and the dead souls they cannot forget were less of chessmen barely coming in for share of it all.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
They are not remembered as trained killers or anyone striving for some nefarious ends. How can you honor anyone with evil ends? They are just being remembered as selfless beings in the commemorators' memory. Ask for yourself the two old men who carried the imperial navy flag what kind of grand ends they strive to attain by that.
Before discerning profoundly evil from more evil, I have to say that to win for a cause is one thing and to commit war crimes is quite another. A bombs cannot be justified for any obligation for ever.
While I don't believe the men carrying the navy flag advocate anything more than their forlorn empathy and esteem for the selfless souls of their comrades, I do feel somewhat uneasy, or I should say distressing and alarming that we had to witness 9.11 disaster in which actual suicide attackers still seemed to strive to attain some ends, nefarious, revengeful or whatever against America. Some wars seem indeed necessary for some people and sometimes they deliberately let it your moral obligation to do profoundly evil things in order to attain their own goals.
Posted in: Yasukuni
0
Seiharinokaze
The ex post facto nature of the Tokyo Trial undermines the legality of the trial for ever. Until August 8, 1945, there had been no crime titled "crime against peace" (class A). The newly contrived crime was applied only to the Japanese leaders at the trial disregarding the preceding Western colonialism/vandalism of the Eastern hemisphere and the re-invasion into East Asian countries by the Netherlands, Britain and France after Japan surrendered. Also the use of the atom bomb (class B/C) by the United States was somehow overlooked signifying the failure of the trial to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate. Is the guilty verdict of class A criminals so overwhelmingly legitimate as to righteously reprove even 63 years after the war the visiting of the shrine by anyone who may or may not want to remember them where their souls (not remains) were enshrined?
I remember a Catholic writer Sono Ayako (and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage commented similarly) saying that it is not up to a human being but God to judge if someone go to Heaven or Hell since human beings cannot be aware of the whole picture of the person's life. If so, how could we be so self-assuredly reprimanding?
Posted in: Japan ministers, but not premier, visit war shrine
0
Seiharinokaze
In 1936 it was not Papa Pius XII but Pius XI who reigned as Pope (May 31, 1857 to February 10, 1939). He even vehemently protested against both Communism and National Socialism as demeaning to human dignity and a violation of basic human rights, but found no echo or support in the democracies of the West, which he labeled a Conspiracy of Silence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopePiusXI
Perhaps incorrigible beam in our eye was prevalent then and perhaps still is. Enshrining of so called war criminals was conducted with the general consensus of the nation after Japan concluded San Francisco Peace Treaty on April 28, 1952. Two days later new laws were approved to provide pension and condolence money to the families of the war dead and then next year the law was revised so that even the families of the war criminals who were executed or died in prison could enjoy the same measures as other war dead. During that time Emperor Showa and prime ministers continued visiting the shrine without any problem or protest from any countries.
I'm not sure exactly what Yasukuni Follies mean, but if it alludes to the enshrinement of class A criminals, I have to say I believe the judgment of war crimes as some universal crime should have been applicable to both sides of victor and loser equally. That's what Ben Bruce Blakeney and Radha Binod Pal argued.
Posted in: The Catholic Church and Yasukuni shrine
0
Seiharinokaze
I heard that unlike Protestant churches the Vatican used to recognize the war between Japan and China was more of a war against Bolshevism. That's why the Vatican approved Catholics' visit to the shrine during the wartime and also why after the war Fr. Bruno Bitter, the representative of the Roman Curia and president of Sophia University opposed and prevented GHQ's plan to burn down the Yasukuni shrine and build a dog race ground on the site.
Reading what the Catholic priest wrote in this commentary, I somehow can see why Christianity does not take root in this country being any more than some tourist spot, though I myself feel indefinable nostalgia for Nikolai-do or Tokyo Resurrection Cathedral at Kanda rather than around Kudan. If nobody seemed interested in Tojo and other stars of the Yasukuni Follies, as he wrote, would nobody really take notice of the monument of Judge Radha Binod Pal in the precinct or Tokyo Trial Follies either?
Posted in: The Catholic Church and Yasukuni shrine
0
Seiharinokaze
bibric
What kind of relation did Choi Nam-seon's book have with the map at all? Why are they displayed together again?
The map on enjoyjapan.naver.com was probably not the one drawn up or reflecting the situation around 1930. Please look at the wording on the right side of the map that reads 明治三十七八年戦役 meaning the war of 1904-5. Perhaps it's a map prepared for military use at the time of the Russo-Japanese War or some other purpose to explain the war. The war broke out in February 1904 and Takeshima was incorporated into Shimane prefecture one year later in January 1905. So nothing wrong with the islets not being shown yet as part of Japanese territory. Besides how could Japan have made a map in 1930 that showed the islets not belonging to Japan when it had been administratively incorporated into Shimane for decades? Do you seriously pick up the map as any counter evidence?
As for the description in Choi's book 朝鮮常識問答 :
極東 東経一三〇度 五六分 二三秒 慶尚北道 鬱陵島 竹島
It describes the easternmost boundary of Korea. It is at an east longitude of 130 degrees, 56 minutes, 23 seconds and it is Jukdo, the neighboring island of Ulleungdo. Jukdo described as 竹島 in there is not Takeshima as you might insinuate because it's written in the same Kanji in Japanese. It's Jukdo, the nearby islet to the east of Ulleungdo at the above location. Takeshima/Dokdo is located much farther east at a longitude of 131 degrees, 52 minutes, which of course the author didn't mention in his book because the islet was not considered as part of Korean territories.
nipponlove:
Your question is incomprehensible. Let me know how Japan's claim on Takeshima could be a textbook fabrication?
Posted in: S Korea reportedly plans to build hotel on disputed islets
0
Seiharinokaze
bibric
Takeshima issue is not a colonial legacy. No country ever occupied or ruled the islets before 1905.
According to Mr. Gerry Bevers http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=670
In 1946, one year after Korea was liberated from Japan, Korean geographer and historian Choi Nam-seon wrote a book entitled, “Common Questions and Answers about Joseon” (朝鮮常識問答), which was designed to teach newly liberated Koreans various facts about their country, including its history, culture, and geography. In the geography section of the book, Mr Choi wrote the following:
Question: Where are the farthest north, south, east, west boundaries of our country?”
Answer: “If islands are included, the fartest eastern point is Jukdo, in Ulleung County of North Gyeongsang Province.
Two years later he published another book entitled, “General Knowledge about Joseon” (朝鮮常識), in which he also said that Korea’s easternmost boundary was at an east longitude of 130 degrees, 56 minutes, 23 seconds and that Ulleungdo’s neighboring island of Jukdo was Korea’s easternmost point. Again, even in 1948, Korean geography books were saying that Dokdo (Liancourt Rocks) was outside Korea’s territorial boundary since Dokdo was located much farther east at a longitude of 131 degrees, 52 minutes.
Wherever the islet called Seokdo 石島 that was mentioned in the Korean Imperial Edict of 1900 was meant to be located, it does not seem the islet was Dokdo, since there should be no Korean territories to the east of Jukdo. So it's not a legacy of annexation but a dispute over the determination of territories in a modern sense that started after the WW2, most probably in 1950's. Will Korea ever recognize this fact? The real historical contex. Otherwise no solution to the issue will be possibly realized.
Posted in: S Korea reportedly plans to build hotel on disputed islets
0
Seiharinokaze
Chosen Ilbo wrote something as follows: http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20060827000000
Almost every Korean view so far on the Japanese imperial days has been that of "exploitation". Japan occupied Korea and politically suppressed it and exploited it economically thus preventing her normal modernization. However, in the 1980's a voice was raised out of the academic circles to question such views. This argument based on statistical demonstration might be emotionally unacceptable to Koreans but it is not easy to disprove it "academically". For example, the radio broadcasting that the government-general of Korea started in 1927 gradually increased programs in Korean language that in effect contributed to the creation of the modern popular culture of Korea. And the first newspaper 漢城周報 written in Hangul and Kanji was realized with the help of Japanese. Before that they wrote only inKanji. Also the Korean literature saw the light of day at the beginning of the last century and never stopped to bloom even during the Japanese days.
also: http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20080330000001 http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20040110000003
Posted in: That's why I think it's a good thing that Japan lost World War II. If Japan had won, so many others would have lost their language and culture.
0
Seiharinokaze
It's because Russia perhaps has something that appeals to us? Cultural anthropologist Nakazawa Shinichi wrote something interesting on why the world of the Orthodox Eastern Church gave birth to many Dostoyevskies. The Orthodox Church has kept the esoteric and profound thinking that Father is Son, and Son is Holy Spirit, and Holy Spirit is Father. Something that the Western Church rejected with the notion of "filioque" at Nicaea. Catholicism then was wedded to Aristotelean type of logic, the rational way of thinking of Greece. Whereas the Orthodox Eastern Church criticizes such Aristotelean logic and requires a very religious way of thinking that contradicts Aristotelean rationality. In the Eastern Church world, we cannot approach the true nature of the world unless we surmount the Aristotelean logic of "A is not non-A". In Russia, the God is a high-dimensional entity where the Aristotelean logic does not work. A can be non-A there; A is replaceable by non-A and nothing changes. Dostoyevsky called it the God. Doesn't such a way of thinking appeal to Japanese?
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/proj/socho/mirai/mirai-nakazawa.pdf#search='中沢新一%20東方'
Posted in: When I see stacks of Russian literature on display at bookstores, I am overwhelmed by a feeling of how far we've come.
0
Seiharinokaze
DenshaDeGo
Not so much to do with racial relation. Novelty is not the main reason either. He sings well as if he knows what he is singing. Korean singers also have been accepted by the same reason. Out of the tunes in this cover album, "Mizukagami 水鏡" seems to be touching a heart chord of many Japanese. Jero seems to know what Japanese sensitivity is.
Posted in: Jero's first album ranked 5th on Oricon chart
0
Seiharinokaze
Another instance that makes many all over the world scandalized at America is the US financial authorities' decision to change their regulation of "current cost account" into "acquisition cost account (about 70% of it)" to be applicable for evaluation of valuable papers and mortgaged real estates that banks and other businesses in America own.
BIS standard and current cost account introduced 20 years ago in place of acquisition cost account devastated and have since afflicted all the banks and businesses in Japan. Then how could America change without scruple the same accounting rule that afflicted others for decades once it begins to afflict themselves in the aftermath of the sub-prime loan crisis? Brazen-faced and imperialistic do not seem disjointed rhetoric.
Posted in: Anti-Americanism at record levels worldwide, report shows
0
Seiharinokaze
The South Korean negotiator saying so is meaningful. It's a got-up affair from the beginning isn't it? Who among the six party talk members except Japan believes NK will abolish nukes? Japan is a deliberate hinderance to make NK seemingly have no choice but go back on her promises. And you can have more isolated Japan and dampen her bid to settle the kidnappings dispute too. Japan is supposed to be there only to donate aid while keeping NK nuclearized. All time unarmed cash dispenser without no sense of security and diplomacy.
Posted in: N Korea demands aid guarantees for nuclear disarmament
0
Seiharinokaze
Sense of right and anger arising from it are often most welcome to some wiles.
Posted in: Anti-Americanism at record levels worldwide, report shows